Seen & heard around our house

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Nothing like turning on the baby monitor to have the crying be in stereo!

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Determined to find the paci that I knew I had put in the crib with him, I looked under the crib and then searched the room before looking between the crib and the wall ... where I found six pacis!

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Where there's a will, there's a way.  We love the Ergo for hikes, grocery shopping, and even the freedom it gives me (and constraint it gives him) so I can eat in a restaurant.  Today I found a new use.  Dry ingredients and wet ingredients were in their separate bowls when naptime ended sooner than expected, and I had a very clingy baby on my hands.  Enter the Ergo!  I wore little one while he calmly watched me mix the pumpkin bread batter, grease the pans, fill the pans, and put them in the oven (that last bit was done VERY carefully!). 

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Broken

It's a broken world.

"It's not right!"

It's not how it's meant to be.

The world is broken, and some days we feel or see it more than others.  

Today while I fought my own early morning battles with a fussy baby, Jim was trimming the bushes.  As I threw another load of laundry in the washer, I reached up to open the cupboard above for soap.  Repairing the hinges on that cupboard door is another project Jim finished yesterday.

Ten days ago we drew a line down the middle of a sheet of paper and made a "His" and "Her" to-do list.  The bushes and the hinges were just two of the items on his side of the paper.  Over these past ten days we have steadily crossed off items:

• replacing light bulbs
• getting rid of piles
• rearranging furniture
• weeding
• moving all the soap & cleaners to higher cupboards
• baby-proofing
• putting away the Christmas dishes & Christmas tablecloth.

Without sin in the world, we wouldn't procrastinate, weeds wouldn't grow in our flower beds, lightbulbs wouldn't burn out, hinges wouldn't break, bushes wouldn't need trimming.

But we live in a broken world.  And all of those things happen ... and need our time and energy to reign them in, to right the wrongs.

And so this past week or so, we have focused in a more concentrated way on exercising dominion over our little corner of the earth. 

Perfect Summer Afternoon

Windows open
Curtains fluttering in the slight breeze
Unseasonably low humidity

The sound of corn rustling ...
and of a crop duster making its passes over a nearby field

Lunch out with friends
Discovering a new-to-us lunch spot in a town 10 miles away
with mouth-watering food
... increasing our take-out options exponentially!

A happy baby
... in his jumper
... then exploring the floor
... then pulling himself up on the couch, and
... practicing his guttural sounds (Yay for strides in speech development!)

It's a good day.